Review: Opera Next 15 Beta

PCWorld - The new Opera Next 15 beta is the re-imagined and slimmed-down version of Opera’s desktop browser. This release comes on the heels of the company’s revamp of Opera 14 for Android.

There’s plenty new in Opera Next 15, although some of the changes are in keeping with Opera 14 for Android, which was released last week. Opera 15’s user interface is simpler, with a single bar for URL and searching, like those found on Chrome and Safari. You can turn on the suggestions from the privacy settings and choose among multiple search providers.

The Speed Dial quick website access feature of Opera 14 has been brought to the desktop and merged with the bookmarks, which now can be found in the top-right corner of the address bar. The mobile version’s Discover feature also made its way onto the new desktop version, with 13 categories in 32 languages of aggregated content for you to browse.  

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Google adds 'Do Not Track' to Chrome by year's end

 
Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Computerworld. The original version of this story can found here. 
 
Google has moved a step closer to making good on its promise to support "Do Not Track" in Chrome by the end of this year.

Chromium, Google's open-source project that feeds code into Chrome, released a build last week that includes the Do Not Track (DNT) privacy setting.

It's unclear how quickly the setting will be moved to the multi-channel build structure of Chrome itself. Google maintains three versions of Chrome: Dev, Beta and Stable, each succeeding version more polished than the last.

The Stable branch of Chrome is due for an upgrade: Google last updated the browser on July 30, when it shipped Chrome 21. The company usually upgrades Chrome every six to eight weeks, putting Chrome 22 on the horizon and Chrome 23, which is now in the Dev channel, up for delivery sometime in November.

In February, Google said it would add DNT support to Chrome after the White House said it would introduce new online privacy legislation in Congress.

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Firefox 15 beta boasts support for Opus audio format, reduces add-on memory leaks

Engadget - Can't bear to part with your favorite browser extensions, but can't stand to see them devour your system memory? Maybe you should check out Firefox 15. According to Mozilla's Hacks blog, the browser's latest beta should patch up the majority of memory leaks gushing from Firefox add-ons. Also new, is the beta's support for Opus, a free audio format partially supported by Mozilla.     More

Firefox Beta 15 supports the new Opus audio format

What is it?

Opus is a completely free audio format that was recently approved for publication as a standards-track RFC by the IETF. Opus files can play in Firefox Beta today.

Opus offers these benefits:

• Better compression than MP3, Ogg, or AAC formats
• Good for both music and speech
• Dynamically adjustable bitrate, audio bandwidth, and coding delay
• Support for both interactive and pre-recorded applications

Why Should I care?

First, Opus is free software, free for everyone, for any purpose. It’s also an IETF standard. Both the encoder and decoder are free, including the fixed-point implementation (for mobile devices). These aren’t toy demos. They’re the best we could make, ready for serious use.    

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The Best Android Browsers

PCMag.Com - Android’s stock browser gets the job done, but there are many alternatives that get the job done even more effectively. Check out some of our favorites.

Android’s stock browser sets the bar high for mobile browsers, standardizing features like voice search, User Agents (optimizing the interface for the screen size), multi-device syncing, JavaScript support, Adobe Flash if you’re running Android 2.2, and numerous sharing options.

The stock browser gets the job done, but Android users have so many more options that are even faster, lighter, stronger, smarter—whatever superlative you seek, really—than the stock browser. Whether you want to customize a gesture-based command, block mobile ads with a plug-in, or shrink your bandwidth consumption by 90 percent, there’s an alternative mobile browser for you.

Cult-favorite Dolphin, our Editors’ Choice, continues to lap the others when it comes to innovation and releasing rapid-fire updates to its Mini and HD browsers. Mozilla just released its tenth iteration of Firefox for Android, making it faster than ever. Oslo-based Opera revved up Mobile to version 12 and Mini to version 7. Meanwhile in the past year Google finally released mobile Chrome in beta, and we saw a relative newcomer emerge from China, UC Browser for Android. This list is by no means exhaustive, of course.

Regular or Mini?

For this roundup, we’ve explored seven alternatives to Android’s stock browser. The easiest way to sort these browsers is by cleaving them into two categories: traditional, full-featured mobile browser (Dolphin Browser HD, Firefox Mobile, Chrome in beta) or smaller, data-conscious mini browsers. Full-fledged mobile browsers tend to deliver a more desktop-complete mobile experience with advanced feature sets and support for embedded video, whereas their minis prize performance and backward compatibility.

Browsers Benchmarked

We benchmarked these browsers wherever possible, and in the case of the mini browsers—not suited to JavaScript tests—we performed real-world testing. Take a look at the reviews, performance charts, and slideshows. This list is by no means complete, lacking cult favorites like SkyFire and Maxthon for Android, but the following are tried and true alternatives we’d recommend:

Dolphin Browser HD 7.3

Free
Dolphin retains the Editors’ Choice designation among mobile browsers, for amalgamating the most complete set of thoughtful features—custom Gestures, Auto-fill searches, and Siri-like voice control, to name a few—without affecting performance and speed. It’s the highest-achiever of the mobile browsers when it comes to performance, but not the fastest, according to our JavaScript benchmarks. Read the full review ››

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Dolphin Mini 2.2

Free
Dolphin Mini is the slimmer, faster version of Dolphin HD, purportedly taking up far less bandwidth. Plus it only requires Android 1.6 and up as opposed to Android 2.0.1 and up for its full-fledged sibling. It’s a speed demon too, although Opera Mini (see below) loads non-JavaScript pages faster. Dolphin Mini also skimps a bit on performance, especially for Flash content. Read the full review ››

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Firefox survives first round of surgery

CNET - Mozilla’s three months into an ambitious plan to bolt a long list of features into its browser. Competitors left it no choice.

Firefox to change its look–again (screenshots)

 

After years of tough competition from dominance-seeking Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, Mozilla faces a second year in a row of forced adaptations. Its aggressive Firefox 2012 development plan calls for surgeries both minor and radical to integrate many new pieces into the browser, but it may not survive post-op. At least, not as you know it.

So far, the changes have resulted in a Firefox which, simply put, runs better. Two of the most tangible new tools have changed add-on behavior. The addition of add-ons to Firefox Sync let you mirror the same add-ons at work and at home, and you won’t have to reinstall them manually if your computer crashes.

A second add-on change marks around 80 percent of add-ons as compatible by default with each new version of Firefox. This prevents the browser from worrying about the “maximum version compatibility” issue that was relevant back in Firefox 3, when updates were annual, but is much less of a problem when updates come every six weeks.

Other early 2012 victories for Firefox include Chrome migration; a new design for HTML5 media controls; better developer and Web platform tools; and a Firefox “hotfix” system for pushing out minor updates that don’t require a browser restart. Granted, these are the equivalent of medicating a patient to lower a fever while the virus still infects the body, but they’re good starts. They’re just more about keeping up with the competition than they are about forging ahead.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The second quarter of 2012 doesn’t look particularly life-saving, either. Some of the highlights of what Mozilla wants to achieve before the end of June include an improved Home Tab and New Tab experience; in-location bar search that ensures user privacy; automatic browsing session restore with tabs-on-demand; a panel-based download manager; and silent updates.

These are achievements that Firefox is not boldly leading on. Some of them, such as the Home Tab and New Tab, and silent updates, are already in the Firefox Aurora development build, which means that they’re well on their way to reaching most people.    More

Google Working on Password Generator for Chrome

PCWorld - Google is working on a new password manager for its Chrome browser that would also automatically create strong passwords for users.

The new manager is currently in the design phase, but Google has described the process by which it would work.

When a user visits a page that Chrome thinks is asking to set up an account, it will place a key icon in the password field of the registration form. If the person clicks on that key, Chrome will ask the user whether he or she wants it to create a password. If the user says yes, Chrome will generate a password that includes letters, numbers and characters that make it difficult for a hacker to crack and impossible for the user to remember — and ask the user to approve it.

Chrome asks the user to approve the password because it may not jibe with the rules established by the site for a proper password. That means a person may have to modify the password manually before accepting it.

Once the password is accepted, Chrome will sync it with the user’s other devices running the browser — provided the sync feature is activated for the person’s Chrome account.

Google thinks its idea is a good one because if a person doesn’t remember his or her password, then it can’t be given away to phishers and other Net lowlifes.

Google’s ultimate goal is to have browsers authenticate a user’s identity. That would be done through a browser sign-in and something called OpenID. “While implementing browser sign-in is something that we can control, getting most sites on the Internet to use OpenID will take a while,” it said in a company blog. “In the meantime it would be nice to have a way to achieve the same affect of having the browser control authentication.”               More

Google’s Chrome for Android: A hands-on tour

Computerworld - After years of unexplained separation, Google’s Chrome browser and Android operating system are finally joining forces.

Google officially launched Chrome for Android on Tuesday. The app, available for any Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) device, functions separately from the stock system browser — and offers plenty of advantages over it, too. In fact, Google says it expects the new Chrome browser to eventually replace the stock Android browser, becoming the platform’s default program for mobile Web access.

The reason Chrome for Android is only available on ICS devices, by the way, is because of the browser’s dependency on hardware acceleration — something earlier versions of Android don’t support.

But enough chit-chat: Let’s dive into the new Chrome for Android browser and see what this bad boy’s all about.

Chrome for Android: The User Interface

The first thing you notice about Chrome for Android is how different its interface is from the stock Android browser. Chrome for Android looks like, well, Chrome. The app has a clean, simple design with a light gray color scheme. It also has a handful of nice animations, like a pleasant slide-in effect when you open a new tab.




The app’s similiarity to the Chrome desktop browser is even more noticeable on a tablet than on a smartphone, thanks to the extra screen space and the way the app adjusts to fill that form.         More

Mozilla slows pace of Firefox 9 upgrades

Computerworld – Mozilla dramatically slowed the update pace of Firefox 9, the browser it shipped late last month.

The company also said it may repeat the slow-down in the future.

Firefox 9, which Mozilla released Dec. 20, has yet to be completely “unthrottled,” or offered as an update to all users, according to notes from a company meeting last week.

Like other software vendors, including Microsoft and Apple, Mozilla can offer upgrades to a fraction of its users rather than to everyone at once. The practice is designed to ensure that download servers aren’t overwhelmed, and to prevent bugs — if there are any in the update — from reaching all users.

Firefox 8, the edition that launched Nov. 8, 2011, accounted for 40% of all versions of Mozilla’s browser five days after its release, and broke the 50% mark 18 days after it shipped, according to usage statistics from Irish metrics firm StatCounter. Meanwhile, Firefox 9 accounted for just 7% of all editions of Firefox five days after its debut and required 24 days to reach 50%.

The slow-down was related to several bugs in Firefox 9 that Mozilla developers have investigated, including one mentioned last week in a status meeting that blocks some users running Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, from playing Netflix content.

While Mozilla issued Firefox 9.0.1 a day after shipping Firefox 9 — the former removed code that caused some Mac, Linux and Windows browsers to crash — it has not released a version 9.0.2 to patch any of the bugs that prompted it to throttle the upgrade process.                   More

Opera 11.6 Ships as Interim Version

PCWorld.Com - Opera Software last week released Opera 11.6, an interim build to tide over users while the company continues to work on version 12 and its hardware acceleration.

Opera 11.6 features a new HTML parser — dubbed Ragnarok by Opera — as well as a revamped address bar that brings up likely destinations faster and more accurately when the user starts typing. Ragnarok provides slightly better performance, but is intended to render more websites more accurately, said Jan Standal, Opera’s vice president of desktop software, in an interview Tuesday.

The update also lets users add websites to “Speed Dial,” Opera’s default new tab page that shows thumbnail images of favorite sites with a single click, much like bookmarks were saved in earlier editions.

Opera redesigned the user interface for the built-in email client, added support for several HTML and HTML5 standards, including content schemes and content handlers for the latter, and debuted support for Google’s new JSON geolocation API (application programming interface).

Standal acknowledged that Opera 11.6 was an interim edition that the company released because it had delayed Opera 12.           More

Firefox 8 cracks down on add-ons

CNET - Mozilla released Firefox 8 today, a version that weeds out some add-ons and that will shoulder more responsibility for the organization’s new fast-development process.

Giving the user control over the Web experience has been a longstanding Mozilla priority, and Firefox 8 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux | Android) takes a new step here. With earlier versions, third-party software could extend Firefox with new features–Skype’s tool for highlighting phone numbers for easy online calling, for example. With Firefox 8, though, third-party add-ons will be disabled by default.

“These add-ons installed by third parties present a number of problems: they can slow down Firefox start-up and page loading time, they clutter the interface with toolbars that often go unused, they lag behind on compatibility and security updates, and most importantly, they take the user out of control of their add-ons,” said Mozilla programmer Justin “Fligtar” Scott in a blog post about the feature.

Mozilla also is working to make sure that people really want the add-ons that already are installed. A dialog box will appear once after the new browser is installed that lets people select which add-ons to enable or disable. Those the user installed will be enabled by default, but those installed by third parties will be disabled by default.

Add-ons have long been a competitive asset for Firefox, but Safari, Chrome, and Opera now have their own versions of the technology. And add-ons can be a disadvantage, too, if they aren’t updated at the same pace as Mozilla now updates Firefox or that aren’t covered by Mozilla’s automatic compatibility testing system.

The rapid-release process, pioneered by Google’s Chrome and in use with Firefox since earlier this year, yields a new browser every six weeks. Among the implications: Differences from one version to the next are smaller, new features can be brought to users without waiting a year or more; delaying a feature carries a lower penalty and doesn’t hold up other features; and slow-moving business customers and add-on programmers have had a harder time keeping up.

The rapid-release transition caused a lot of indigestion, but Mozilla is committed to it. A major course correction, though, appears likely with the proposal of the Extended Support Release version that’s updated every 30 weeks.

Updating Firefox rapidly is a priority in part because new Web features developing rapidly and the browser market is arguably more competitive than ever. Firefox’s previously steady growth in usage has plateaued with the arrival of Chrome, and Mozilla is at a grave disadvantage in the mobile browser market, where Firefox isn’t installed anywhere by default.

A lot of Firefox users remain on version 3.6, which predated the rapid-release era. That’s likely to change, though: On November 17, Mozilla plans to flip the switch for recommending Firefox 3.6 users update. Since many people typically follow the upgrade recommendation, that’ll mean Firefox 8 will be the introduction many Firefox users will have to the rapid-release philosophy.

 

When Firefox 8 is run for the first time, it will ask users 

what add-ons they want enabled. By default, it’ll 

suggest turning off add-ons that were installed 

by third-party programs and enabling those the 

user installed. (Credit: Mozilla)

Mozilla isn’t ceasing support of Firefox 3.6 yet, though. Today, it also plans to release the latest maintenance version, 3.6.24.

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5 awesome Mozilla Firefox secrets

CNET - While Firefox might be your chosen browser for its speed, useful add-ons, and open-source culture, it’s also packed with many useful built-in features.

We dug through Firefox‘s endless list of features to find you the best, little-known secrets you can start using right now.


1. Customize search with Smart Keywords
A little-known Firefox feature lets you run searches within any given Web site from the browser’s address bar. For example, to search for “TouchPad” within Amazon.com, all you’d have to do is type “amazon touchpad” in the Firefox bar.
To create a smart keyword, head to a Web site and locate the search field. Then, right-click the search field and select “Add Keyword for this search…”. Create the bookmark, store it in a folder, and your smart keyword is now enabled. Try it with reference sites like Wikipedia and IMDB for quick access to answers.


2. Open multiple Web sites at launch
Who says you can have only one home page? You can set Firefox to open all your favorite Web sites at launch. For example, I’d like CNET, Facebook, and Twitter to launch every time I open my browser.

In Firefox, go to Options > General. In the home page field, enter URLs separated by pipes. For example “http://www.cnet.com | http://www.facebook.com | http://….” and so on. Then, hit “OK” and relaunch your browser to see the magic happen.         More

Apple's Safari grows faster than Chrome in July

Meanwhile, Internet Explorer continues to bleed share

 

Computerworld - Apple's Safari last month posted its biggest increase ever in usage share, beating perennial champion Chrome in the gain game, Web metrics vendor Net Applications said today.

The browser bundled with Apple's revenue troika of Mac, iPhone and iPad boosted its share by six-tenths of a point, its largest one-month increase, enough to put it at 8.1% for July, a record.

According to Net Applications, iOS devices like the iPhone accounted for more than a third of Safari's browser share.

But while Safari climbed -- something it's done 17 straight months -- Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) dropped by nine-tenths of a percentage point, its biggest decline since January 2011, and ended July at 52.8%, a new low for the browser.

Browser wars

• Apple's Safari grows faster than Chrome in July
• Mozilla hustles to handle demise of Google Toolbar for Firefox
• Apple patches 58 Safari bugs to deflect drive-by attacks
• Mozilla slates Firefox 5 update to fix Lion crash bug
• Microsoft ignores IE slide, touts IE9 success on Windows 7
• QuickPoll: Has Mozilla lost its way in blowing off the enterprise?
• Google patches 7 bugs in Chrome browser
• Mozilla moves 55% of Firefox 4 users to new version in first week
• Opera follows rivals with minimalist 'Featherweight' UI
• Mozilla mulls Firefox 3.6 retirement, too

More: Browser Topic Center

If IE's decline continues at the pace of the last three months, it would fall under the important psychological line of 50% in November.

Google's Chrome was the only browser other than Safari to improve share in July, growing by three-tenths of a percentage point to finish the month at 13.5%. That keeps it on track to break the 15% bar by October.

Both Mozilla's Firefox and Opera Software's Opera lost ground, slipping two-tenths and one-tenth of a point, respectively, adding to those browsers' long-standing problems.     More

5 seriously useful Chrome extensions

AdBlock Plus removes unwanted pop-ups, ads, banners, 
and YouTube video advertisements. (Credit: Screenshot 
by Sharon Vaknin/CNET.)

 

CNET - There's one major element that sets browsers like Google Chrome apart from Safari and Internet Explorer: add-ons. Some are entertaining--Angry Birds, anyone?--while others add convenience or manipulate the look of Web sites you visit.

Below, you'll find the most useful extensions available in the Chrome Web Store. Everyone has their favorites, so I asked you for recommendations on Facebook and Twitter. Although there were many excellent suggestions, here are the top five useful extensions (and one app):

1: AdBlock Plus. Most Web sites pay their bills using advertisements, which often distract you from seeing anything else on the page. Originally created for Firefox, AdBlock Plus blocks banners, pop-ups, ads, YouTube video advertisements, and other bothersome images.
Feeling guilty about blocking ads on your favorite Web sites (because that's the only way they'll stay afloat)? AdBlock Plus lets you to enable advertisements for specific sites.

2: Screen Capture (by Google). Screen Capture lets you grab entire pages or selected areas and annotate them with highlights, drawings, and borders. Then, quickly save your screenshot, or share directly to Facebook or Picasa. Simple, convenient, and seriously useful.       More